Treviso, Italy, January 15, 2014. The fairy tale of Italian rookies Prosecco Doc-Imoco CONEGLIANO continues; on Wednesday night the “Panthers” – as they are dubbed by their fans – downed Russia’s Omichka OMSK REGION in straight sets (25-23, 25-18, and 25-23) to make a step forward on their way to the Playoffs 6 of the 2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Women though they still have to go for a re-match next week in Siberia’s second largest city.
CONEGLIANO and OMSK are both making their first appearance in Europe’s elite club competition and therefore particularly eager to progress to the next round. CONEGLIANO set the pace of the game all the way through in the opening set (8:3, 16:13) displaying excellent tactics. However, right towards the end of the set, OMSK REGION responded with some powerful attacks to take the lead for the first time (20:21) before good blocks by Berit Kauffeldt and the very poor performance of the Russian players from the service line paved the way for the final 25-23 for the hosts.
In the second set Bulgarian-born opposite Emiliya Nikolova was just unstoppable for the tall Russian block and she anchored her side to a comfortable set win (25-18).
However, CONEGLIANO trailed 1:8 in the third after a terrific start by the guests from Russia who were powered by the attacks killed by Cuban-born spiker Nancy Carrillo. After trailing 4:12, the “Panthers” showed all of their determination and much patience to slowly but surely fight their way back; with great defense and Marta Bechis replacing US American setter Carli Lloyd, they literally flew to the provisional 14:13 after a 10-1 run which paved the way for their straight victory.

“We played an almost perfect game, especially in serving and blocking” commented Italian coach Marco Gaspari. “This is a great victory that we want to dedicate to our fans. This was just a superb performance from a team that is participating in this competition for the first time. Now we look forward to the return game in Russia with the confidence that we can take from this victory.”

“We have a very strong team but tonight we were not able to show that” said Omichka mentor Zoran Terzic. “We made too many mistakes and in general we did not play a good game. However, we still hope to change the course of this double-header with the return game next week in Russia.”